Promulgated by Pope Benedict XVI on October 11, 2011, the Year of Faith was the Holy Father's way of exhorting Catholics to a renewal and rediscovery of faith while commemorating two important anniversaries. He wrote in his apostolic letter Porta Fidei:

In one of my earlier blog posts entitled The Kerygma Enigma, I wrote of the essential importance of the initial preaching or proclamation of the basic Gospel message in the process of evangelization. After more than twenty years in professional pastoral ministry, I have become quite convinced that one of the reasons why we Catholics tend to be so weak and ineffectual at evangelization is the fact that we...

Today is my birthday, and it is precisely at this time when I am especially mindful of my patron saint, Saint Louis IX, King of France. I became especially acquainted with him after I relocated to the American City that bears his noble name. I don’t know if you know much about Saint Louis, but I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am to have been born on the feast of such a remarkable and godly man.

Louis was born in Poissy, France on April 25, 1215 to King Louis VIII and Blanche...

Kerygma is a term that is largely unfamiliar to most Catholics. Kerygma (from the Greek keryssein, to proclaim, and keryx, herald) refers to the initial and essential proclamation of the gospel message. The word appears nine times in the New Testament: once in Matthew (12:41), once in Mark (16:20), once in Luke (11:32), and six times in the letters of St. Paul (Rom. 16:25; 1 Cor. 1:21, 2:4, 15:14; 2 Tim. 4:17; and Titus 1:3). To put it simply, the kerygma is the...

~ Theo Venard, Blessed, missionary priest, martyr in China; to his executioner, who had just asked Venard what he would give to be killed quickly because the executioner coveted Venard's clothing. Fr. Venard was beheaded.